Mandy's Musings

Thursday, 21 July 2016

Today I am chatting to Lynda Stacey about her debut released this week - House of Secrets. Great to have you
here, Lynda! Make yourself comfortable and can I interest you in a
Cornish Cream Tea?

Cream Tea?? Now
you’re talking, of course you can.

The blurb for
The House of Secrets is very intriguing. Can you tell me who
discovers the main secret, or will that give the game away?

The secrets are
hidden within a diary that’s found by Madeleine and the hero of the story
Bandit. The diary belonged to the former owner of the house. The diary of Emily
Ennis begins when she’s just a young lady, and takes you through her life,
during which you find out the secrets that have been hidden for many years.

Ooh, sounds intriguing! Can I ask who is your
favourite character and why?

My favourite
character, Wow, that’s a hard question. I love them all. But, if I had to
choose one, it would have to be Nomsa. She’s a lovely, happy-go-lucky Caribbean
lady, with a huge personality. She works at the hotel and becomes a mother
figure to Madeleine. She’s certainly someone I’d love to sit at the kitchen
table with, drinking gallons of tea.

Talking of which…. Do
pass a scone..!

Of course, more cream too? Now, which character do
you like least and why?

But they do say that
children are intuitive and Poppy is terrified for a reason. She’s managed to
work Liam out very quickly and he knows it.

I see. Not sure I like the sound of him either. So which scene did
you enjoy writing the most and which did you find the most difficult?

Gosh… I don’t think
any of them were easy. It’s like asking me to climb Everest and then asking
which step hurt the least lol.

If I really had to
choose. I’d say that the most enjoyable, would probably be the one where
Madeleine first see’s Wrea Head Hall.

It brought back all
the feelings I had when I went to Wrea Head Hall for the very first time. My
husband took me for my birthday, which is Christmas week. I remember driving
towards it and seeing it towering up before me, gargoyles and all. I loved the
way the amber lighting, along with the huge twenty foot Christmas tree shone
back at me through the grand window and the way the log fires brought a feeling
on ambience to each room. I remember the first moment I walked in through the
huge, gothic, arched front door, I could feel the history seeping out of the
walls. It was as thought the ghosts of the past were still there, but in a nice
way and I knew right then that the house needed a great story.

The most difficult
scene. That’s an easy one to answer, but I can’t. It would give away the story.
But, I will reveal that I was sat one night, tapping away on my lap top, writing
this scene, I almost threw it off of my knee. My husband looked at me in shock
and asked what was wrong, and all I could say was, “I have no idea where all
that came from, but if I don’t stop writing that scene now, I’ll give myself
nightmares.”

Oh, I felt a shiver then... More tea? Okay, you have a dual
time-frame in your novel. Which time period would you most like to live in,
the present or the past?

I’d just like to live
in a time when everyone got along. There’s so much hate in the world right now,
it’s awful and to be honest. I don’t get it. There’s absolutely no need for it,
everyone should be nice to one another. In my mind, it really wouldn’t and
shouldn’t be that difficult.

Totally agree there! Can you tell me a
little of what your WiP is about?

I’ve just finished
writing my 3rd novel and I’m researching my 4th. I was born a miner’s daughter, lived through
the miners strikes and left school at an early age to find employment, so our
family could eat. I thought it would be a good idea to write a time-slip, going
back to the miners strikes, to the times when communities looked after each
other and then, in the present day part of the novel, show how things have changed.
I guess you could say that I‘m kind of going back to my roots.

Oh, and of course,
there will be romance, and suspense, and probably murder…. But you’ll have to
wait and see.

Can't wait! Where do you find
your inspiration? Is it always easy for you to come up with new
writing ideas?

My problem is that I
have too many ideas. I think I have some kind of ADHD, my brain never stops. I’m
a very active person, which is why I work full time, run a home and write
books. Just watching television on a night would drive me insane. I think I drive
my husband mad by waking up in the middle of the night, thinking up and writing
down future plots. Or I get up at stupid o’clock on a Saturday or Sunday
morning to write. You’ll often see me logging onto Facebook or checking Twitter
before six in the morning.

At the moment, I have
a possible 7 different books that I could start.

My inspiration comes
from life. I believe in romance, and in love, but I know from very personal
experience that life isn’t always that simple. I’ve had a very diverse life and
was married very young. My first husband was a narcissist, a very controlling
man who also suffered with autism. Nothing had a grey area with him and unless
you did things his way, he wasn’t happy and yes… I saw sense and eventually
left. But I did live through it for 3 years.

I am similar to you regarding ideas - my brain won't switch off either! And yes, life experience good and bad brings great inspiration. Which writers
influenced you the most?

Again, so many. I’ve
always loved so many genres and I think I’d miss someone out if I were to
choose. But I can say that I loved all of your books, especially the Stitch in
Time and the Cross Stitch, you can’t beat a bit of time travel. And what’s
more, I’m really looking forward to reading your new book, Summer in Tintagel.

Oh that's so kind. Thank you! Did you have a
dream to become a writer when you were little as I did?

I wanted to be an
author for as long as I can remember. My father was a strict man
and I would have to sit quietly for hours. Which is when I sat and wrote
stories. At the age of 14, my English teacher advised that I look for a job in
journalism, or followed my dream of being an author. But, just before leaving
school, I went to my careers advice officer and he asked me what I wanted to
do. I very proudly told him my ambitions and he rubbed his chin and said, “Have
you ever thought of being a shop assistant, I hear they’re taking on at Boots
the Chemist.” Hence to say, if I were to ever meet him again… I think I’d have
a word or two to say to him.

Indeed. And where do you see yourself in two years in terms of your writing career?

Well… I’d like to still be sat here
eating Cornish Cream Tea with you, but other than that, I’d like to think that
I could do something good. It would be amazing to win an award and to be called
an ‘award winning author’ or to sell so many books that I’d be able to put
‘best-selling author’ on the covers.

I’m very ambitious and if nothing else,
I already have my sights set on completing another couple of books in that
time.

And I'm sure you will achieve your aims too. Thanks so much for stopping by today and eating all the scones ... I mean sharing my Cream Tea! It has been lovely to chat! :)

Find out more about House of Secrets and Lynda below:

HOUSE OF SECRETS

Short Synopsis

A woman on the run, a broken man and a house with a
shocking secret …

Madeleine Frost has to get away. Her partner Liam has become
increasingly controlling to the point that Maddie fears for her safety, and that
of her young daughter Poppy.

Desperation leads Maddie to the hotel owned by her estranged father –
the extraordinarily beautiful Wrea Head Hall in
Yorkshire. There, she meets Christopher ‘Bandit’ Lawless, an ex-marine and the
gamekeeper of the hall, whose brusque manner conceals a painful past.

After discovering a diary belonging to a previous owner, Maddie and
Bandit find themselves immersed in the history of the old house, uncovering its
secrets, scandals, tragedies – and, all the while, becoming closer.

But Liam still won’t let go, he wants Maddie back, and when Liam wants
something he gets it, no matter who he hurts …

Lynda, is a wife, step-mother and grandmother, she grew up in the mining
village of Bentley, Doncaster, in South Yorkshire.

She is currently the Sales Director of a stationery, office supplies and
office furniture company in Doncaster, where she has worked for the past 25
years. Prior to this she’d also been a nurse, a model, an emergency first
response instructor and a PADI Scuba Diving Instructor … and yes, she was crazy
enough to dive in the sea with sharks, without a cage.Following a car accident in 2008, Lynda was left with limited mobility
in her right arm. Unable to dive or teach anymore, she turned to her love of
writing, a hobby she’d followed avidly since being a teenager.

Her own life story, along with varied career choices helps Lynda to
create stories of romantic suspense, with challenging and unpredictable plots,
along with (as in all romances) very happy endings.

Lynda joined the Romantic Novelist Association in 2014 under the
umbrella of the New Writers Scheme and in 2015, her debut novel House of
Secrets won the Choc Lit & Whole Story Audiobooks Search for a Star
competition.

She lives in a small rural hamlet near Doncaster, with her ‘hero at home
husband’, Haydn, whom she’s been happily married to for over 20 years.

Monday, 20 June 2016

I'm so excited that Summer in Tintagel will be out in a few short weeks! The 14th of July is publication day and the Kindle version is available for pre-order now. You can't see inside yet, so I thought I'd give you a sneaky peek at the opening lines. Hope you like them!

Chapter
One

Rosa
kneels on the lawn. It is summer, but the grass is damp under her bare legs and
she wishes that she had taken the picnic rug that Mummy had tried to give her
just now. Mummy said that she was wilful and she’d have to learn by her own
mistakes. Rosa wonders what wilful means as she pours water from the plastic
teapot into a tiny cup and places it in front of Barney, her oldest teddy bear.
Wilful is perhaps the same as stubborn. Daddy often says she is stubborn.

‘Would you like tea too, Miss Jemima
Puddle-duck?’

A
stuffed green and brown duck looks at her from its one glassy eye, but says
nothing. Rosa nods. ‘Yes, of course you would. You can have a biscuit too.’

Rosa puts cups in front of all her
toys and looks back across the long expanse of grass towards her house. The sun
hides itself behind a cloud, but that isn’t the reason she has goosebumps
forming along her arms. She feels her heartbeat quicken and she tightens her
grip on a biscuit. It crumbles and leaves as sticky smear of chocolate on her
fingers. Rosa licks the chocolate, but her stomach rolls and she tries to blot
out a voice in her head. Daddy will be angry, very angry.

A scream pierces the silent
afternoon. It comes from the house and it sounds like her mother. Rosa leans
her back against a tree and draws her knees up under her chin. She looks at a
grass stain on her white sock and her whole body begins to shake. A siren wails
up the valley and she knows that something bad has happened. Very bad.

She has been under the tree what
feels like a long time, but then she sees Daddy burst from the house as if he
has been fired like a bullet from a gun. His hair is messy and he runs his
hands through it with wild jerky movements. Daddy’s tie is pulled to the side
and he doesn’t look at all neat. Being neat is something he is very proud of. Rosa
tries to make herself small, but he has seen her and runs towards her ... fast.

Daddy kneels beside her and puts his
big hands on her shoulders. He shakes her roughly. ‘This is all you fault!
Dabbling in evil always ends in disaster, do you hear me?’

‘I ... I ... haven’t done anything
...’

‘Don’t lie! All this mumbo jumbo
about ghostly old ladies appearing in my house and warning you to ...’ Daddy’s
face looks like a Halloween mask and his mouth twists down at the corners. ‘Never mind. You are going to your room and
staying there for the rest of the day!’

Rosa’s arm hurts where Daddy is
squeezing it as he drags her back to the house. Her eyes fill, but she won’t
let him see. She is glad she is going to her room, because she doesn’t want to
know exactly what has happened; the bad thing that has made Daddy so angry.
Rosa has a good idea already and this makes her so sad that she can hardly
breathe...

Friday, 20 May 2016

I know the new IKEA advert is quite sentimental, but the tag line stuck in my head. It is something along the lines of - enjoy the little things in life, because one day you will realise that they were the big things. Now, this won't make me rush out and buy IKEA products, but it has encouraged me to think more about the little things.

My five-year-old grandson picked these for me today as we walked from his school. As we threaded through the crowds of children, he kept stopping and picking them from the verge even though his friends were around. His little face showed love and pride as he presented me with the tiny bouquet. He said, 'These are for you, Mimi.' As you can imagine, I found I'd a lump in my throat. Not because he'd picked me daisys, buttercups and a dandelion, but because he was totally oblivious to the social pressures that some of the older children in his school would be aware of. In a few years time, it will be uncool for him to pick his Mimi flowers, or to do or say lots of other wonderful sweet and innocent things that he amazes me with on a daily basis.So I will treasure these flowers in their egg cup vase, because they are a symbol of the little things in life being the big things ... in fact, I'd say that they are bloody huge things.

Monday, 2 May 2016

Well it's May and the last post on here was February - I know, scandalous! So I thought you might like a look at three extracts from my latest works.

First up, Summer in Tintagel - out on the 14th of July, Cast Away Stones, finished a few months ago, and The Calico Cat finished just last week!

I am a bit of a writing machine at the mo, though I think I will have a rest now. The extracts are all very different from each other. I hope you like them! Oh, and if any talent scouts or Hollywood producers fancy getting in touch, just form an orderly queue...

Rosa
kneels on the lawn. It is summer, but the grass is damp under her bare legs and
she wishes that she had taken the picnic rug that Mummy had tried to give her
just now. Mummy said that she was wilful and she’d have to learn by her own
mistakes. Rosa wonders what wilful means as she pours water from the plastic
teapot into a tiny cup and places it in front of Barney, her oldest teddy bear.
Wilful is perhaps the same as stubborn. Daddy often says she is stubborn.

‘Would you like tea too, Miss Jemima
Puddleduck?’

A
stuffed green and brown duck looks at her from its one glassy eye, but says
nothing. Rosa nods. ‘Yes, of course you would. You can have a biscuit too.’

Rosa puts cups in front of all her
toys and looks back across the long expanse of grass towards her house. The sun
hides itself behind a cloud, but that isn’t the reason she has goosebumps
forming along her arms. She feels her heartbeat quicken and she tightens her
grip on a biscuit. It crumbles and leaves as sticky smear of chocolate on her
fingers. Rosa licks the chocolate, but her stomach rolls and she tries to blot
out a voice in her head. Daddy will be angry, very angry.

A scream pierces the silent
afternoon. It comes from the house and it sounds like her mother. Rosa leans
her back against a tree and draws her knees up under her chin. She looks at a
grass stain on her white sock and her whole body begins to shake. A siren wails
up the valley and she knows that something bad has happened. Very bad.

She has been under the tree what
feels like a long time, but then she sees Daddy burst from the house as if he
has been fired like a bullet from a gun. His hair is messy and he runs his
hands through it with wild jerky movements. Daddy’s tie is pulled to the side
and he doesn’t look at all neat. Being neat is something he is very proud of.
Rosa tries to make herself small, but he has seen her and runs towards her ...
fast.

Daddy kneels beside her and puts his
big hands on her shoulders. He shakes her roughly. ‘This is all you fault!
Dabbling in evil always ends in disaster, do you hear me?’

‘I ... I ... haven’t done anything
...’

‘Don’t lie! All this mumbo jumbo
about ghostly old ladies appearing in my house and warning you about ...’ Daddy’s
face looks like a Halloween mask and his mouth twists down at the corners. ‘Never mind. You are going to your room and
staying there for the rest of the day!’

Rosa’s arm hurts where Daddy is
squeezing it as he drags her back to the house. Her eyes fill, but she won’t
let him see. She is glad she is going to her room, because she doesn’t want to
know exactly what has happened; the bad thing that has made Daddy so angry.
Rosa has a good idea already and this makes her so sad that she can hardly
breathe...

CAST AWAY STONES

Sunday morning in our
street looked the same as it did on every other day except that privet hedges
looked less green, the windows hid behind curtains, flowers in gardens seemed a
little more faded and the garden gnomes looked hung-over. It was though the
week had been so hard to deal with that the collective energy of houses,
humans, plants and gnomes alike had been reduced to emergency levels only.
Today being the first of August and the third of a heat wave added an extra layer
of apathy and inertia, unbroken even by the tolling of St Bartholomew’s bell
calling all parishioners, willing or reluctant to morning service.

‘Right, I’m off to church and I have just popped the
roast in so it will be well on the way when I get back.’ She cocked her head
birdlike to one side and looked me up and down. ‘Now, don’t worry about
anything while you’re away. I’ll look after your dad. This is your time, go for
it, as you young ones say.’ Her lips twitched at the corners and then lifted
for at least two seconds.

There was an unexpected lump of emotion growing in my
throat, and before I could talk myself out of it, I stepped forward and put my
arms around her. She felt solid and dependable and I wondered what I’d do
without her. Adelaide said something that sounded like, ‘Awumha’ and patted my
back a little too hard.

‘I can’t begin to thank you for everything you’ve done
lately, Adelaide,’ I said looking away from her moist eyes, in case mine tried
to copy them.

Adelaide
flapped her hand and looked into the boot of my car. ‘Nonsense, I did what any
good neighbour worth her salt would have done.’ She eyed the iron and frowned.

‘We
both know that’s not true,’ I said, closing the boot and leaning my hip against
it. ‘You made me realise it was time to cast away stones and that was the most
important thing ever.’

Her
mouth twitched again and she nodded. ‘Good. I’m glad. And now I’d better pop
off or I’ll be late. Safe journey.’ She touched my cheek lightly and then I
watched her small figure hurry away down the street. As she passed each house, it
seemed to me that the privet hedges and flowers regained their colour, the
windows threw back their curtains and the garden gnomes stood to attention and
saluted her. Okay, perhaps the last bit was taking things too far...

THE CALICO CAT

My sketch pad is at the ready for those wildflowers,
and maybe even a dolphin if we get up early enough on this holiday. Sunrise,
dolphins and ocean, who could want for more? I hug Algernon to my chest and
inhale the scent of wildflowers, ozone and banana and exhale a heart-swell of peace,
calm and happiness.

Happiness is funny
isn’t it? Elusive for some, taken for granted by others and unrecognised by
many. We are encouraged to think that happiness comes wrapped around a new car,
house, various expensive this that or the others, or maybe it is hidden in the
in arms of a lover – the Mr or Miss Right that we all must find.

This soulmate has to
be everything we dreamed they would be, or if they are not, we pretend that
they are and hide our disappointment. To go through life without our ‘other
halves’ is to show the world that we have failed, that there’s something wrong
with us. Then, once we have found our soulmate and amassed our expensive this
that and the others, we need to make sure our success is passed on to future
generations. Children are the cherry on
the cake, the completion of our world - our happiness.

I worry that while many
are in (often futile) pursuit of the all above, they might miss the delicate
and wondrous beauty of a wildflower, a butterfly, the scent of the sea, a sun
warmed stone, the feel of wet sand under bare feet, the taste of fresh baked
bread. Does that make me sound pompous? Self satisfied? I think it might, but I
don’t mean it to.

I certainly don’t claim
to have all the answers, and I know I am very lucky not to have to worry about
the practical day-to-day, but I wish people would take their gaze from the
monolith of ‘happiness’ more often, slow its relentless build, and instead,
truly appreciate the daisy growing through the crack in its brickwork...

Thursday, 4 February 2016

This is the cover reveal of Summer in Tintagel! Isn't it fab!! I'm so excited and can't wait to see it in the flesh. Here's the blurb:

We all have secrets……

Ambitious journalist Rosa Fernley has been asked to fulfil her grandmother Jocelyn’s dying wish. Jocelyn has also passed on a secret - in the summer of 1968, fleeing from the terror of a bullying husband, she visited the mysterious Tintagel Castle. Jocelyn wasn’t seeking love, but she found it on the rugged clifftops in the shape of Jory, a local man as enigmatic and alluring as the region itself. But she was already married, and knew her husband would never let her find happiness and peace in Jory’s arms. Now as her days are nearing their end, she begs Rosa to go back to Tintagel, but is unwilling, or unable, to tell her why.

Rosa is reluctant - she has a job in London, a deadline that won’t wait and flights of fancy are just not in her nature. Nevertheless, she realises it might be the last thing she will do for her beloved grandmother and agrees to go.

Once in Tintagel, Rosa is challenged to confront secrets of her own, as shocking events threaten to change everything she has ever believed about herself and her family. She also meets a guide to the castle, Talan, a man who bears a striking resemblance to Jory...

Will the past remain cloaked in tragedy, sadness and the pain of unrequited love? Or can Rosa find the courage and strength to embrace the secrets of the past, and give hope to the future?

You can see my author page and more about Urbane Publications here. I'll keep you posted!!